


we were part of something ours and ours alone

by caimani



Series: Prompts for Werewolf TAI... [4]
Category: The Academy Is...
Genre: Early Days, M/M, Werewolves
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-08
Updated: 2017-07-08
Packaged: 2018-11-29 06:10:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,939
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11434791
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/caimani/pseuds/caimani
Summary: 4. RivalryBill can’t stand Mike sometimes. He’s really fucking trying to make The Academy work, but it’s hard to do that when Mike is either yelling at him or running off in the middle of the night with no explanation.





	we were part of something ours and ours alone

**Author's Note:**

> thank you so much to everyone who helped and encouraged me on this I love you all

Maybe Mike Carden was a mistake but fuck if Bill’s going to admit defeat now. He’s already promised Adam that this is it--they’re going to make _something_ out of The Academy, and they’re going to do it with Mike Carden. He’s come too far to quit. He’s pissed off his parents, gotten himself kicked out, and moved into the shittiest apartment ever with a job in fucking _retail_ for all of this. 

Somehow, Bill is going to make it through this. He loves the music they’re making more than he hates Mike, so that’s one thing pulling him through.

Finally home from work, Bill slams the door of the apartment harder than necessary. As the door shuts with a loud bang, he stares straight at Mike, who’s slouched on their piece of shit couch with his guitar. 

Mike’s hands visibly grip the neck of the guitar tighter. “You wanna break the fucking door, Beckett?” he growls.

“Why not,” Bill says, walking past Mike to his bedroom. “Maybe someone’d break in and murder us in our sleep. Do us a favor.” He drops his backpack inside his bedroom and then heads back to the kitchen. The sink is still just as full of dishes as it was when he left earlier. 

“Jesus fuck, Bill, even you’re not that emo,” Mike says with a sneer. “Do us a real favor and write more interesting things into your crap lyrics.”

“My lyrics are fine,” Bill shoots back. “Like you can do any better.”

“Give me five minutes on LiveJournal and I can find a ghostwriter for you.”

Bill grabs an empty plastic cup from the stack in the sink and pitches it at Mike. Mike swats it away before it hits him. 

“If you’re just going to throw a fucking tantrum, I’m going to leave,” Mike says. 

“Go ahead,” Bill says, turning back around. He looks in the refrigerator and breathes a sigh of relief when he sees the pizza box with SISKY’S written across the top in black marker. Bill takes it out and checks inside. Mike clearly helped himself to half of it while Bill was gone, but at least there’s enough for Bill’s dinner.

A door shuts loudly behind Bill--the door to Mike’s room probably. Bill ignores it.

The rest of the evening is painfully uneventful. Bill picks up his notebook and flips through it, wincing when he rereads some of the pages of lyrics. Mike’s sort of right; most of this shit is unusable. Nothing that would open people’s eyes or make them turn their heads. Bill grabs a pen and tries to come up with something new, but all he manages to write is half a page of abstract complaining about his job. Still nothing.

He groans and puts his notebook away, then looks around for the TV remote.

Bill can’t remember what he ends up watching, nor does he remember falling asleep. He wakes up for a moment when Mike yells something and closes the apartment door. And he falls asleep again.

Some time later, Bill wakes up to his phone ringing loudly. Normally he has it turned on vibrate so he can miss calls from work telling him to come in on a day off, but recently he’s been keeping it on loud in the hopes of getting fired for unprofessional behavior. 

It’s Adam. And it’s also four in the morning. On fucking Saturday. Bill shuts his eyes and groans.

“What is it?” he mumbles. Adam better have a damn good reason for calling him. He’s full of aches from sleeping on the couch in his work clothes, his mouth has a gross taste in it, and he could really use about fifteen more hours of sleep. 

“Hey, Bill!” Adam sounds far too awake for this time of morning, god damn it. “Have you seen Mike in, like, the past three hours?”

Bill reluctantly gets up and stumbles through the apartment. He stops at Mike’s door and kicks it. “Mike, answer your damn phone. Stop ignoring Adam.”

There’s no answer. Bill pushes the door open. The bedroom is empty, save for all of Mike’s shit. Okay, so Mike’s not here. “I’ve been asleep,” Bill says honestly. He yawns. “What, are you trying to find him?”

“Uh, he came here at midnight. We, uh, sort of talked for a bit and he left.”

Bill sleepily makes his way to his room. He needs to change into something far more comfortable. As interesting as this conversation is, Bill would much rather be asleep. Mike’s bullshit is not and never will be worth losing sleep over. He seriously needs to stop dragging Adam into his messes, especially at fuck o’clock at night. 

“What the hell was he doing over there?” Bill asks, shuffling through his piles of mostly-clean clothes.

“Ah, just… stuff,” Adam says rather vaguely, then quickly adds, “Not Academy stuff, don’t worry about that. But he, uh, wasn’t doing too good. I tried to help him out, but, it just wasn’t working.”

“His prissy attitude is his own damn problem,” Bill says. He puts the phone on speaker so he can change. “Why’d you guys even let him into your house?”

“Where do you think he went?” Adam asks.

“Why do you care? What was he complaining about?”

“Uh…” Adam breaks off, and in the pause that follows, Bill hears the distinctive sound of late night (or super early morning) traffic.

Bill is suddenly very awake. “Where are you?” he demands.

“Looking for Mike.”

“Where? Are you by yourself?” Bill says, almost tripping over his clothes to find his shoes. “Shit--Adam, where are you? I’m coming to get you.” He grabs his keys and dashes out of the room. 

“Bill, it’s okay! I’m with Jason.” Adam says a little too quickly.

Bill glares at the phone. “Really?” he says, unconvinced. “Put him on.”

“I’m not with Jason.” Adam admits.

“Adam!”

Adam suddenly gasps. “Mike!”

And the call cuts off.

~~~~~

Blood. Moon. _Contact_. Blood. Yelling. Night. Moon. _Contact_. Anger. Blood. Human. _Contact_.

Mike staggers back from the human in the alley, lifting a hand to taste the blood on his knuckles. His senses are still on overload: sound, sight, touch, smell, taste. He needs more, the wolf needs more, there’s too much and he doesn’t want to hurt anybody but he _needs_ to feel that contact with--

A face pushes into his line of sight, blocking the other guy’s slumped body. Mike’s not done yet, and a snarl comes out of his throat before his self preservation can step in.

This new guy is strong enough to shove Mike back a step. Mike grabs at him-- _finally a challenge_ , but--

No. 

Stop.

It’s Sisky.

The wolf backs down. Just like earlier, when it realized that Sisky was too young for this. Mike takes a voluntary step backwards. He blinks a few times. “Sisky,” he says, his voice a bit hoarse. 

Sisky looks pained. “God, Mike, what are you doing?” 

Shit, shit, shit, what is he doing?

Mike grabs at his head and pulls his hair. “I… I just needed to...” He glances over Sisky’s shoulder and watches the guy’s chest move slowly up and down. He’s still alive. Good. God, Mike wasn’t trying to kill him. He just… just needed to let off steam. No, he needed to let the wolf feel, and he needed someone tough enough to take a few hits. 

And it turned into a bit more than a few hits. Shit.

Mike rubs his hand over his bleeding knuckles self consciously. “I didn’t think it’d get this bad,” he says lamely. That’s the truth, as unconvincing as it sounds. But he doesn’t understand. His parents have such good control during the full moon. He thought that he was handling his wolf well enough. 

Sisky shakes his head. He leans forward and wraps his arms around Mike. “It’s that bad? God, Mike. You should have said--earlier when you came by. I, I can help!” 

“Sisky, stop.”

“No, we can--I don’t know, we can get out and run. There’s this place me and Jason go to sometimes--”

The guy behind them lets out a low groan. Mike and Sisky look at each other anxiously. Without a word, they run out of the alley as fast as they can. Side by side, they take off down the empty sidewalks. And this helps, a little. Mike feels a grin coming to his face as his wolf pushes him to move his body faster and faster. They fly over a crosswalk, confusing the hell out of a truck driver who belatedly honks his horn.

Mike overtakes Sisky and starts leading him towards a park. It isn’t too big, but it’s got a long bike path that Mike runs sometimes in the daytime. He and Sisky can shift, run around it at least once, and shift back before any humans come around. It’s early enough.

“Mike!” 

Mike slows down to a halt and turns around. They’re just outside of a school parking lot. The sun is starting bring light to the clouds, but the air is still cold. Mike loves it as much as his wolf does, and he imagines Sisky feels the same way.

But Sisky doesn’t look happy. He’s pulling his phone out of his pocket with a small frown. “Bill’s trying to call me back,” he says reluctantly.

It takes a moment for Mike to process that, since his mind is still in tune with his wolf, wanting to start running again. But… what did Sisky just say? 

“Wait. Bill? What are you talking about?”

“Uh…” Sisky stuffs his phone back in his pocket. “I… might have called him when I couldn’t find you.”

Mike’s eyes grow wide. He’s not feeling the thrill of the morning run so much anymore. “What! Why? He has nothing to do with this!”

Sisky shrugs. “I, I don’t know. I thought you might have gone back to your apartment…”

Go back? To that cramped hellhole of an apartment? On the night before the full moon? Not fucking likely. After Bill managed to piss Mike off just by walking through the door earlier… _fuck_. Even just thinking about Bill now… Mike’s wolf wants to sink his teeth into Bill’s body and make him bleed. He wants to shove him down onto that piece of crap bed of his and--

“I should answer him,” Sisky mutters, holding up the phone again. “He thinks I’m going to get killed out here alone.”

Mike scoffs at that idea. Yeah, right, poor defenseless werewolf. Sisky may not be as big or strong as Mike is now, but he’s still perfectly capable of handling anything the city can throw at him. His parents know that and Jason knows it too. Werewolves can either outfight or outrun just about everything, including vampires. 

Mike grabs Sisky’s phone and answers it. Sisky yells in surprise and tries to take it back, but Mike dances out of reach of his flailing hands and smirks at him. “Bill,” Mike says.

Bill doesn’t respond for a moment. “...Mike?”

“Yeah.”

“Is Adam there?” Bill asks. “Is he okay? Where are you?”

Mike gestures at Sisky to follow him and he starts running at a brisk pace. “Chill your flat fucking tits, he’s alive. You called his phone, of course he’s here.”

“Where the fuck are you? Mike, you--argh! He’s been wandering around for hours looking for you, you fucking dick! I fucking swear, I’m going to--”

“Calm down, asshole, we’re like a minute away from the apartment.” Mike says. Bill’s voice is really grating on his nerves again. It’s reminding him why he left the apartment in the first place. Whiny fucking Bill Beckett making Mike dig his nails into his palms, making sure they don’t become claws. Mike could barely hold himself back--he had been itching to shift and tear into his arrogant human bandmate right then and there.

“I can’t believe what a fucking asshole you are,” Bill says. “Why were you bothering him at fuck, fucking midnight? Can’t deal with talking things out with me, so you have to go pick on Adam? What did you say to him? He wouldn’t tell me.” 

Mike kind of really wants to ram his head into a fucking stop sign. Then maybe bring the sign back and smack Bill with it.

“If you’re forcing him to keep secrets, I’m going to--”

“Oh my fucking god,” Mike groans and slows down just long enough to shove the phone back at Sisky. “Here, _you_ deal with him.”

Mike speeds up again. He’s dreading what they’re going to walk into when they finally get back to the apartment. He doubts Bill’s going to cool his head before then. At least they’re running slow enough so they pass as early morning joggers, slowing or stopping at crosswalks and intersections. It’s giving them a bit more time. 

Sisky catches up with Mike again. The phone is put back in his pocket. He sighs. “It’d be easier if he knew.”

“What would be easier?” Mike grumbles. 

Sisky waves his arms around. “The band?”

Mike shakes his head vehemently. “He doesn’t need to know. The fuck could he do anyway?”

Sisky looks away from Mike. “You think we can keep the shifting a secret when we’re touring? When we’re all stuck together in a van?”

“We’ve got to get to that point first,” Mike says. “Seriously, what do you think Bill could do about it? He can’t even--”

Sisky cuts Mike off with a low warning growl that takes Mike by surprise. Right. Sisky’s already gotten in two losing fights with Mike after he insulted Bill. Idiotic loyalty to a jerk who doesn’t deserve it. 

But Bill’s expecting them back, and he’ll only flip his shit even more if he sees traces of a fight on Sisky. So Mike just keeps his mouth shut, rolls his eyes, and continues jogging to the apartment.

~~~~~

Bill is pacing around the living room when the door finally opens. Adam walks in first. Mike is second, closing the door once the two are inside. Bill opens his mouth right away to demand more of an explanation from Adam-- _seriously_ , he’s still a kid and Jason is expecting Bill and Mike to look out for him--but he notices something else.

“What the hell, Mike?” Bill says, gaping at Mike. “Were you in a fight?”

Mike’s shirt is splattered with blood. His knuckles are scraped, like he’s been punching things… or people. Bill stares at his appearance with some horror. He quickly checks Adam; he looks fine from what Bill can see. Jesus.

Mike doesn’t answer. Instead, he slumps down onto the couch, pulls a battered cigarette pack out of his back pocket, and lights up. After a lazy drag, he blows the smoke to the side and says, “No.”

Bill yells in frustration and stomps out of the living room. Adam is in the kitchen, looking in their cabinets. Probably looking for pop-tarts. They haven’t bought more of those since Adam and Mike got in a terrifying wrestling match over the last one. 

“What were you doing?” Bill says, watching Adam excavate a Rice Krispy from behind a few boxes of cereal. “Are you okay?”

“Yeah, I’m okay. I promise.”

“What happened to Mike?” And what the hell made Adam run around in the middle of the night, when someone could have kidnapped him or mistaken him for an underage hooker?

Adam goes tense. He smiles in that stupidly obvious way that makes it transparently clear that he’s hiding something important. “I told you,” he says, playing with the edges of his snack. “Mike came over and then ran off. I went out looking for him. He didn’t have his phone, so I just checked all the places I thought he’d go. I found him and we walked back here. That’s it.”

Bill narrows his eyes. “That can’t be all.”

“It is!” Adam weasels around Bill and dives for the refrigerator. “Hey, who ate my pizza?! Mike?”

Mike laughs loudly. “Wasn’t me.”

“I can’t believe you! I was saving that!” Adam closes the refrigerator door. “I’m going to go get a new one. I’ll be right back.”

“It’s five in the morning,” Bill says incredulously. 

Adam pauses to consider that. “Oh. Right. Uh, Bill, I’m going to borrow your bed, okay?” Without waiting for approval, he runs for Bill’s room, still clutching the Rice Krispy.

Bill fixes a glare on Mike, who’s crushing his cigarette in an ashtray. “Okay, Adam’s not going to admit it--”

Mike jumps up to face him. “There’s _nothing_ to--”

“--but I know you, Mike, and--”

“Shut up, you don’t fucking know shit about--”

“--coming back covered in blood? What are you getting Adam involved--”

“Shut up! I didn’t fucking ask Sisky to do anything--”

One of their neighbors is pounding and yelling on the wall, but Mike and Bill just keep raising their voices over each other.

“--you went to his house to complain in the middle of the night--”

“I can do whatever I fucking want, whenever--”

“--what, you hate me so much that you can’t say--”

“Oh, my god, Bill, not everything’s about you, you narcissist!”

Bill shoves his hand against Mike’s chest. “No, it’s about the _band_ , isn’t it?”

Mike is speechless for a second. “What?” 

“You’re so frustrated about our progress that you have to--”

Mike roars and slams a fist to his side, punching a hole in the wall of the apartment. Stunned, Bill stops yelling.

“Jesus, you’re fucking overthinking this,” Mike says, stepping into Bill’s space and grabbing his shirt. “You’re a fucking moron, Bill.”

Bill glares and pushes at Mike. The bastard won’t budge. “What am I supposed to think then? You’re not quitting--?”

“I’m not quitting this band,” Mike spits. “I’m just going to kick your ass into pulling your goddamn weight. I can’t do shit until you fucking write something!”

Bill is shaking with rage. How fucking _dare_ he? How fucking _dare_ Mike insinuate Bill’s not putting every scrap of effort he has into The Academy? 

Bill grinds his teeth together and punches Mike square in the jaw. Mike’s head is thrown to the side and his mouth opens to pant. He doesn’t let go of Bill’s shirt, and his hands tighten as he turns his head back to face Bill. Bill’s heart pounds and his lungs heave, and he has an impulse to punch Mike again. Turn this into a fucking brawl.

But Mike growls and drags Bill in a semicircle, shoving his back against the wall, right next to the hole he just punched in it. 

“Do you even care about this band?” Mike yells.

“Shut up!” Bill yells back. “Shut up!”

“Are you even--”

“Fuck you!” Bill punches Mike again. “I’m trying!” 

“Try harder!” 

Bill hates this, he _hates_ this. Mike is such a self-righteous, arrogant douche and Bill can’t fucking stand it. He does the first thing he can think of--anything to pull Mike off his high fucking horse. 

He grabs two fistfuls of Mike’s hair and yanks him forwards. Their lips smash together brutally, with jaws and teeth in the way. Their mouths bruise and someone’s lip splits before Bill takes advantage of Mike’s surprise. He twists his hands roughly in Mike’s hair and kisses him hard, deep, dirty. 

_Finally_ , Mike is shutting the hell up.

~~~~~

Bill is kissing him. What the fuck.

Mike’s mind goes blank in his confusion. All of his previous thoughts are gone, forgotten. Bill is pulling hard on his hair and holding him so close that Mike spontaneously braces himself against the wall, effectively caging Bill in. 

His wolf loves it. His wolf wants more, wants to bite and claw and make this even better. And it’s just so fucking close to the full moon that Mike lets himself go, just a little. He shuts his eyes. He pushes back against Bill’s mouth, tastes his blood on Bill’s tongue and _god_ , that’s just so-- Mike’s hands clench and he leans his body closer. He pushes forwards against Bill, pinning him to the wall. Bill’s hands tug harder on his hair and it fucking hurts and the wolf wants _more_.

Mike breaks his mouth away from Bill’s, bites at Bill’s lip--only hard enough to bruise, but the wolf fills his head with ideas of how he could tear it _so easily_ with sharper teeth and less restraint. Jesus. Mike kisses Bill again and pushes his body roughly against the wall. He can feel Bill’s heart beating, his body shaking. He can smell something like attraction, hot and thick. Bill tastes kind of weird but Mike doesn’t want to stop.

Bill suddenly lets go of Mike’s hair and starts clawing at his shoulders. Mike reluctantly moves back a few inches. He opens his eyes to see Bill glaring at him. It’s a different kind of glare than before.

“Get off,” Bill says, shoving at Mike’s chest.

“You started it,” Mike says. He backs off though, and drops heavily onto the couch. Fuck. How is he supposed to concentrate on anything with that turned-on smell still in the air? Fucking teenage male hormones. Even worse, the goddamn scent is coming from both of them. Shit.

“Didn’t happen,” Bill says. He grabs his notebook from the coffee table and returns to the kitchen. 

“Whatever.” 

Mike wonders if it’s too late to go back outside and rip that stop sign out of the ground. He could probably even do it; his wolf’s pissed off enough. But he’s absolutely going to need to shift early today. He’s been juggling way too much frustration in such a short period of time. Going from pissed to calm and back to pissed. And repeat.

Bill starts making noises in the kitchen, moving around bowls and pots and utensils. It sounds like he might actually be washing the dishes. Incredible. Wait, shit, if Mike has to fucking make out with the guy just to force him to get his ass together and clean up, he’s going to fucking bite somebody’s head off. Literally. 

Mike shakes his head and storms off to Bill’s room. The door is slightly ajar, so Mike pushes it open the rest of the way. Sisky is sitting on the edge of Bill’s bed, looking alarmed. 

“I didn’t hear anything--” he starts quickly.

“Bullshit,” Mike says. Not that he really cares about what Sisky thinks, so long as he doesn’t bring it up. 

Mike lowers his voice. “I don’t care. Sisky. We’re going out tonight. I don’t care where, and I don’t care if Jason comes with. Actually, no I don’t want him there.” Jason is old enough that Mike might give in to the urge to go all out and fight in wolf form. Not a good idea. Mike rubs his hand against his forehead. “I just need, fuck, _at least_ twelve hours away from Bill.”

Sisky nods. “I can take care of Bill. Uh, I mean I’ll take care of getting him out of the way.”

“Great,” Mike says. Now he just needs to deal with Bill until then. Ugh. Nope, fuck that. “I’m fucking going to sleep.”

He locks his bedroom door behind him, takes off his clothes, and buries himself under the blankets. Unfortunately, sleep doesn’t come for a while. When Mike finally stops listening to Bill moving around the apartment, he lets his mind drift to thoughts about punching the crap out of that guy in the alley. 

It’s enough of a distraction that it keeps Mike from thinking about that damn kiss.

**Author's Note:**

> let the academy boys say fuck


End file.
